Contribution of integrated management systems to
university management: case study of the Federal University of Rio
Grande do Norte.

Abstract:

Problem statement: The Higher Education Institutions (IHL) have
intensified process of introducing undergraduate and graduate courses to
more remote regions, which expanded the scope of what these institutions
and allowed the formation of population of these regions. This expansion
(whether by on-campus or distance learning) presents new challenges for
university management and integration of the players involved in this
process. The purpose of this article was to demonstrate importance of
information systems for university management and integration, focusing
on decentralization and expansion of IHsL. Approach: The investigation
was descriptive and the article is practical in nature. A case study was
conducted at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil). The
research proposal of article was to answer the following question: How
does an information system contribute to managing university expansion?
Results: Results showed the relevance of integrated management systems,
given university expansion and broadened horizons observed in recent
years. The system analyzed proved to be extremely efficient, since
practically all university activities can be monitored and evaluated.
Conclusion: It was concluded that using integrated management systems
during higher learning expansion maximizes this process, resulting in
credible and rapid procedures that are more efficient and more
effective.

According to Alonso (2010) apud INEP-Anisio Texeira National
Institute of Educational Studies and Research (2008), higher education
is experiencing rapid growth in Brazil and the dynamics of expansion is
marked by a growing private sector. It is worth remembering that in
accordance with data from the Anisio Texeira National Institute of
Educational Studies and Research, higher education in Brazil is one of
the most private-based in the world.

With this growth, according to Fook and Sidhu (2010) Institutions
of higher education to revisit have their purpose assessment of if they
hope to equip learners with skills and their competencies needed to
succeed in today's workplace.

According to INEP (2010), 84% of the 5,115,896 higher education
enrolments in 2009 were in private institutions, representing 89% of the
2,281 establishments.

The 2007 Census of Higher Education shows that 106 institutions
were federal, 82 state and 2,032 private (Alonso, 2010). Approximately 2
thousand were characterized as faculties, schools, institutes,
integrated faculties and technological faculties, while universities and
university centers accounted for 8% and 5.3%, respectively. To
accelerate growth in both federal and private IHL, the federal
government adopted a series of measures aimed at public higher education
called REUNI (Program of Support for Plans of Restructuring and
Expansion of Federal Universities).

The REUNI program budgeted R$ 64 million for maintenance,
personnel, designated functions and management positions and R$ 81
million in new projects, renovations and equipment, in addition to 344
new professors and 447 technical-administrative employees.

Based on this growth, it can be stated that universities have more
information to manage and more complex processes to execute. This
procedure includes student registration, grade processing and absences,
as well as administrative information related to internal processes such
as ordering material and employee attendance.

According to Elias et al. (2010) students seem to have difficulties
in their academic study and coping with the learning tasks. Their
difficulties include studies, personal, emotional and social matters;
the use of tools can help in order to remedy this difficulty.

Institutions are therefore resorting to technology to enhance and
simplify information management. Emulating information systems used by
companies, teaching facilities are also adopting Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP), but only for information management.

It is noteworthy that ERP is an information system that integrates
(in an only system) all organizational functions and processes (Karsak
and Ozogul, 2007; Zahedi et al., 2011) facilitating the processes in the
administrative functions (Drucker, 1998), providing cost reduction,
waste of time, among other benefits (Hendricks et al., 2007).

Accordingly, the purpose of this article is to demonstrate the
importance of information systems for university management and
integration, focusing on decentralization and expansion of IHL. The
research proposal of the present article is to answer the following
question: how does an information system contribute to managing
university expansion

The article begins with an introduction, followed by a section on
theoretical foundations discussing university management and the
information management system. Section 3, methodology, addresses the
research methods used. Section 4 presents the case study, analyzing the
information management system used by UFRN. Results of this analysis are
shown in section 5, considering the contribution of the information
system to university expansion, thereby meeting the study objective. The
article concludes with a list of references.

Framework: Universities need adequate organizational structure and
competent management. The strategies should be aimed at service quality
and awareness of the importance of information systems in disseminating
and socializing knowledge (Weiping, 2010; Bernardes and Abreu, 2004).

Information systems play a potentially key role in university
administration since these institutions, like all organizations, are
created to satisfy customer needs. The clientele of Brazilian
universities is society as a whole, which benefits from their teaching
practices and research. How can universities improve their management
systems, both academically and administratively?

Over the years higher education in Brazil has undergone rapid and
profound transformations in terms of its expansion and ultimate purpose
(Macedo et al., 2005; Nascimento, 2006; Barreto and Filgueiras, 2007;
McCowan, 2007; Castro, 2009; Omidinia et al., 2011). How can information
management be optimized amidst this growth? An effective decision would
be to implement an integrated information system, gathering information
on all institution users, whether staff or students, in a single place.
This would make it easier for the entire academic community to use the
system in addition to streamlining administrative and academic
procedures.

In this context, university management studies are relevant in that
they indicate tendencies regarding the use of information systems aimed
at the decision processes of IHL, in accordance with Bernardes and Abreu
(2004) and Omidinia et al. (2011).

Universities should also adopt good management and technology
processes to satisfy their users, that is, society, which enjoys the
benefits of their teaching practices and research (Wainwright, 2005;
Melian-Gonzalez and Bulchand-Gidumal, 2009; 2010). To that end,
universities must make proper use of new technologies, primarily
information management, by adopting systems that fit their specific
needs (Bernardes and Abreu, 2004; Hidalgo et al., 2011).

Based on this knowledge of university management, we will now
discuss concepts of information management systems and how these are
incorporated into higher education institutions.

By "system" we mean a group of elements or parts
integrated by a common objective (Davenport, 1998). Thus, the idea of
organizations as systems integrates different functional areas towards a
common goal. Information systems, in turn, can be understood as a group
of interrelated components that collect, process, store and disseminate
information to support decision making and managerial control. These
systems can therefore be defined as the transformation of data into
information used to determine organizational structure and that provides
administrative sustainability aimed at optimizing expected results
(Stair and Reynolds, 2009; Laudon and Laudon, 2007; Murphy and Jongh,
2011).

Using information systems requires knowledge of the organization as
well as information technology management. In order to understand the
nature and impact of an information system on an organization, one must
be aware of the problems which they are designed to solve (Lai et al.,
2010), the solutions proposed and organizational processes leading to
these solutions (Morton and Hu, 2008; Ifinedo, 2011).

The main characteristic of information systems is the integration
of different organizational databases, irrespective of their origin, in
order to provide support for the strategic administration process. Thus,
the concept of an information system depends on the administrative
system that it will support. Efforts related to the architecture and
development of information systems should concentrate on identifying
data required in the strategic administration process and determining
the subsystems that must generate it.

As observed by Laudon and Laudon (2007), an information system that
produces the organized information needed for decision making,
operational control and creation of new products and services performs
three activities, namely: input, processing and output. Input for an
information management system consists of internal and external data.
The most important internal source is the system of recording daily
transactions and operations within the organization and can originate
from various functional areas. External sources correspond to data on
entities such as customers, suppliers, competitors, government and
shareholders.

The processing phase includes elaboration of tasks, operations,
ordering, calculations and execution of functional requirements. Several
data processing methods can be used such as manual, mechanical,
electrical, electronic depending on the product and information desired.

Typical information system outputs are periodical, on-demand and
exception reports. Periodical reports involve the monitoring and
systemized control of organizational actions such as a key indicator
report. This summarizes the previous day's activities and must be
presented to management first thing in the morning. On-demand reports
are issued or developed upon management request and aim at meeting a
particular information need, normally outside standard operating
procedures. Exception reports are automatically produced when a
situation is unusual or requires specific managerial action.

Before system implementation, awareness of process needs is
required to elaborate a coherent system and then be able to implement
it. After implementation, information ends up influencing decision
making. This influence is attributed to information's capacity to
reduce the uncertainty of environmental conditions and consequently
induce management to make the best decisions. Among the benefits of an
information system is the ability to optimize organizational
performance, allowing strategic management committed to efficiency,
whether by visualizing corporative data or providing immediate
information for the decision-making process.

Integrated systems directed at university management are
increasingly more common in the university sector. Their primary
objective is to improve services provided to the internal community
(professors, students and employees).

By using these systems students have direct and rapid contact with
the different university departments, facilitating communication between
members, allowing files to be exchanged, enrolments to be made, projects
to be registered, debate forums to be created. This type of management
allows for simultaneous monitoring of student performance and
relationships between university members, resulting in a faster and more
simplified flow of operational information.

The academic management system of institutions contains the
databanks required to monitor teaching and resource utilization, in
addition to being a support tool for planning, decision making and
institutional assessment. This can also be unified with administrative
and financial management, allowing for elimination of redundancies and
inconsistencies and enhanced control of transactional processes, which
promotes greater transparency in university management decisions and
increased efficiency in the application of physical and financial
resources.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This is an exploratory study with a qualitative design, using a
bibliographic survey and case study. The Federal University of Rio
Grande do Norte, located in Natal, Northeast Brazil, was selected to
investigate The Integrated Management Systems (IMS) developed by this
IHL. The methodology describes the steps that will be used to meet the
following study objectives:

* Understand and evaluate university administration and information
management systems

* Analyze the system used by UFRN

* Explain how information systems contribute to expanding the
horizons of higher education

Case study: The Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte currently
offers 75 on-campus undergraduate courses and 73 graduate courses. Its
academic community is composed of 33,000 students (undergraduate and
graduate), 3,108 technical-administrative employees and 1,760
professors. The institution also has the Distance Education Secretariat
(SEDIS), which offers courses to approximately three thousand students
in 4 states (Alagoas, Pernambuco, Paraiba and Rio Grande do Norte).
Seven undergraduate courses are available (Mathematics, Chemistry,
Physics, Geography, Biological Sciences, Business Administration and
Public Administration) and four new ones are planned (Physical
Education, History, Arts and Pedagogy), in addition to two
specialization courses (Public Management and Municipal Public
Management) and a master's course in Mathematics.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Distance courses are offered in certain parts of the state called
units. These are support facilities located in urban areas to attend as
many students as possible. Each unit contains equipment such as an
informatics laboratory, library, academic secretary and specific
laboratories for all areas. The university currently employs 200
on-campus and 73 distance tutors distributed into 20 support units.

Part of this growth is associated with the REUNI Program, which
created 16 new undergraduate courses at the Natal, Caico, Currais Novos,
Santa Cruz and Macaiba (Jundiai) campuses in 2008. This expansion will
generate 2,700 new places by 2012.

The institution under study has significantly widened its
geographic and academic scope and the other campuses have also shown
good growth numbers (for number of courses offered, students enrolled,
professors and employees).

In light of this scenario and the need for increasingly efficient
integrated systems that facilitate decision making, the university
developed the Integrated Institutional Management System, composed of
five systems with different uses and access levels, as follows:
Integrated System of Patrimony, Administration and Contracts (SIPAC);
Integrated Management System of Academic Activities (SIGAA); Integrated
System of Management, Planning and Human Resources (SIGPRH); System of
Systems Administration-Technical and Management (SIGAdmin); Electronic
Document Manager (SIGED). Another system is the iProject (Integrated
System of Project Management), designed to manage development of the
remaining systems (SINFO, 2011).

These Integrated Management Systems (IMS) are used by the entire
UFRN academic community (professors, employees, students, researchers),
allowing for a link between UFRN systems and management systems used by
the Federal Government (Fig. 1). Of the five existing modules
(Management Systems), three are considered primary: SIGAA, SIPAC and
SIGPRH.

SIGAA, which is responsible for procedures linked to academic
management, contains thirty-one modules related to the nature of the
activity. These include, among others, undergraduate, graduate
(master's, doctoral and non-degree) and technical courses,
elementary and secondary schooling, submission and monitoring of
projects and research scholarship holders, submission and monitoring of
extension programs, submission and monitoring of teaching projects
(tutoring and innovations), registration and reports on professors'
academic production, distance teaching activities and a virtual learning
environment (called Virtual Class) (SINFO, 2011).

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

The Fig. 2 above describes the information system and its modules
available for a student.

These three modules are integrated by SIGAdmin, responsible for
administering and managing these systems. This system aims at managing
common entities (users) of computerized systems, meaning only system
managers and administrators have access.

Each system and its modules perform innumerous administrative and
academic procedures/operations (each with a specific purpose) created
according to the university unit requirements. These procedures follow
internal (UFRN) and government resolutions (municipal, state and
federal).

The importance of these three modules justifies their analysis.
They are the primary systems used in the institution, encompassing all
university management areas (academic and administrative) so that
intercommunication occurs, as depicted in Fig. 1. The next chapter
describes the case study, followed by results obtained from the analysis
in question.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Teaching institutions worldwide are expanding rapidly, increasing
enrolment and the number of professors and employees. This is especially
so in higher education, where, in addition to natural expansion (owing
to the development of institutions, society and the market),
consolidation of distance learning through the internet has broken
traditional regional education barriers.

If the academic and administrative management processes of
institutions of higher learning used to be complex (due to innumerous
processes and the large number of students, professors and employees),
activities have become even more costly since university expansion and
decentralization. Thus, in order to manage these institutions,
administrators must have access to reliable data and information to make
better decisions. In this context, integrated management systems are of
primary importance.

These systems integrate data from other systems, favoring efficient
management of several organizations. Integrated management systems at
the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte are composed of five
interconnected systems. This provides the necessary means for academic
and administrative management of IHL against the backdrop of expanding
horizons and decentralization.

Unit managers can use these tools to make any type of
administrative request, material requisition, office supplies purchase,
schedule employee vacations, in addition to carrying out all university
academic procedures. For example, management at a distance learning unit
located in the city of Petrolina (state of Pernambuco), 897 km from the
central campus of UFRN, can make any requisition and receive answers in
real time (for some procedures).

These rapid processes allow for efficient management, reduce the
cost of office supplies, such as paper, safe release of information,
automatic protocol generation. Moreover, systems (according to current
legislation) monitor the length of time to complete a particular
function, helping managers execute tasks.

A significant innovation was the creation of the integrated
management system. Before it was implanted, all procedures (from
publishing research results to buying coffee) were carried out and
stored in different databases, often on paper. Academic and
administrative management of the different university units, albeit
partially standardized, was done manually, requiring considerable time
and effort to complete procedures.

According to the Webometrics (2011), of the 200 largest
universities in Latin America, UFRN ranked 24th among IHL in terms of
internet visibility and quality content. This ranking was based on
institutional publications (scientific articles published in journals,
research results, registered patents), considering content relevance.
Also based on the aforementioned site, UFRN ranks 15th among Brazilian
universities and 3rd in the Northeast, behind the Federal Universities
of Pernambuco and Bahia and 583(rd) worldwide.

These data are important, since, according to Webometrics (2011),
four of the top 50 Brazilian universities are implementing the system
used at UFRN, through technical cooperation and seven other Federal
Institutions of Higher Learning (FIHL) are also doing so. In addition to
these FIHL, five federal departments (Federal Police Department, Federal
Highway Police Department, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Culture and
Brazilian Intelligence Agency) are implementing integrated
administrative management systems (SIPAC and SIGPRH). The Ministry of
Planning is considering implementing IMS in all Brazilian institutions
(SINFO, 2011).

This illustrates the relevance and influence of UFRN's
integrated management systems. Thus, with system implementation,
university administrators gained simple and rapid access to a wide range
of information/reports such as number of students enrolled, which
professor had the highest travel expenses or published the largest
number of articles; which course had the highest failure rate/which
campuses were adhering to budget estimates; which professors and/or
employees were on vacation and for how long, among other information.
Thus, academic and administrative management becomes very efficient,
even though campuses and teaching units are located throughout Rio
Grande do Norte and in other Northeastern states.

Although it is not yet possible to determine the exact university
cost savings resulting from IMS implementation, it can be unequivocally
stated that these systems allow for effective educational management in
all areas of the IHL. Furthermore, rapid processes, reduced bureaucracy,
decreased geographic barriers and easy and quick access to institutional
information are other benefits achieved from implementation of these
systems.

Final considerations: Teaching institutions, especially higher
education facilities, find themselves in a new era, characterized by
expanded teaching horizons. The number of courses offered, undergraduate
or graduate, on-campus or distance, as well as students, professors and
employees, is increasing steadily. Against this backdrop, academic and
administrative management of IHL becomes even more complex, making
efficiency and effectiveness essential components of quality education.
Integrated management systems therefore provide the necessary tools for
effective management.

This study, conducted at the Federal University of Rio Grande do
Norte, Brazil, achieved the established aims by illustrating the
importance of integrated management systems for institutions of higher
learning. These systems provide the necessary elements for academic and
administrative management, even though the institution has several
campuses and teaching units spread throughout the Northeast of the
country. Processes that were done manually and stored in different
databases are now concentrated and managed by online systems.

Integrated information systems permitted effective university
integration and management. Results show the efficiency of the research
method used. With respect to the contribution of information systems to
management during university expansion, these systems were found to
provide positive elements under this scenario. They are therefore very
important in the current educational context worldwide.

The systems analyzed in the case study confirm their efficiency,
since several higher education institutions in Brazil are planning to
implement them. Moreover, important federal government entities, such as
the Ministry of Justice and Brazilian Intelligence Agency, are also
establishing integrated management systems.

CONCLUSION

It is concluded, therefore, that information systems are extremely
relevant for university management against a backdrop of expansion.
Additionally, these systems allow for integration between the social
players and participating entities of a university environment, by
providing tools that enable online information exchange.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This study was supported by CNPq (National Council for Scientific
and Technological Development), the Federal University of Rio Grande do
Norte, the UFRN Postgraduate Production Engineering Program and the
Competitiveness, Innovation and Management Strategy Research Group,
affiliated to UFRN.

Melian-Gonzalez, S. and J. Bulchand-Gidumal, 2009. Good moves,
mistakes and unexpected events in an initiative to improve public
management in the ICT service provision at a university. Int. Rev.
Admin. Sci., 75: 271-291. DOI: 10.1177/0020852309104176